I left, the way he’d asked, but I didn’t go home. I couldn’t stand sleeping in my bed without him, knowing he might not be in it again. The boat had a bedroom below deck, and Angel had never been in it. I doubted I’d have a good night, but I hoped I’d at least be able to sleep there.
13
Angel
Eye boogies were stuck on my face. I used my thumb to pry them away from the corners of my eyes. I’d fallen asleep with tears leaking down my cheeks, and this itchy crud was the result.Yuck.I flicked the yellowish grossness onto the scuffed floor and didn’t care where it landed. A few stray boogies were the least of my worries today.
My blankets were a friendly cocoon around me and I huddled deeper into them. The covers that were over my head like a hood slipped down and blocked my eyes. I thought about just falling backward and dozing off again. I’d barely slept last night between my stomach churning over how I would get Dad’s house fixed before he came back, and the way Casey had come over here, mad as hell. I’d wanted to let him in, needed his arms around me.
But he’d yelled.
Then he’d battered at the door andthe noise hurt my brain.
The pounding had overwhelmed me to the point that all I could do was put my earbuds in, crank up my music, and bury my face in my Spider-Man pillow while I waited for him to go away. I gave my pillow a squeeze. So, that’s what I’d done.
And then, I’d missed him once he was gone.
With a sigh, I shoved back the blankets from my head and groped for my phone on the floor beside the bed. I rested my cheek on Spidey and texted Kyle that I wouldn’t be in to work today. He hit me back with a flurry of questions. I sent him one reply:
Myarm hurts.
That tiny fib, which wasn’t a complete lie, was enough to have him promising to let HR know I was taking a day off. He even went so far as to ask if I needed someone to come over and check on me. I ignored that. I shouldn’t take time off but didn’t feel as if I had any choice. I pushed away the blankets and got myself moving. The shower here wasn’t very nice and the water didn’t ever get hot, so getting cleaned up wasn’t an especially exciting prospect.
I skipped it.
Who cared if I was a mess at Dad’s house? The neighbors thought I was trash anyway. I pulled on my dirty clothes from yesterday. The ass of my jeans was smudged with mud. Oh well, I’d only be going back to get dirtier. I checked around in the dresser drawer where I normally stashed snacks. One problem, though, I hadn’t been here for a couple of weeks, and all that was left was a bag of Cool Ranch Doritos and a Monster. I snagged both and went out the door to wait at the bus stop. I tried not to think about how my hoodie belonged to Casey as I pulled the hood up to block some of the snow while I opened my bag of chips. My wrist hurt. The cast was… kind of falling apart. That was probably bad.
Everything was bad.
The need for sad music to match my shitty day had me juggling everything to put earbuds in, and I pulled up my Angst Ahoy playlist, full of every song that made me want to lay on my bed in the dark and wallow in misery. I couldn’t make myself feel anything that was good right now anyway, so why try? I poked at the dangling strips of plaster on my cast and shoved chips in my mouth until the bus came, relishing the junk that Casey hadn’t been letting me eat as much as I wanted. Who was I trying to fool? He asked me to be a middle for him, but half the time I wasn’t pretending.
I was just a kid, and all this grown-up shit overwhelmed me.
The bus driver was a woman today, and she wrinkled her nose at me as I popped the top on the Monster and slurped the liquid go juice on my way up the steps. I went all the way to the back, and she started the bus forward before I made it to the seat. It hurt when I tried to catch myself with my bad hand, and I didn’t care. I sprawled on the seat and stared out the window at the gray world going past. I stuffed my trash between the side of the seat and the metal wall like an asshole.
When I got off the bus at the end of the block near Dad’s house, I shoved my hands into the pockets of the hoodie and cringed on the inside. How much money had washed down the drain—or out into the yard—already? I never should have let myself leave last night.
But Casey bear was mad at me….
When I got close enough to the house that I could see the lawn, I stopped to gape. Three green trucks with long beds and tall wheels were parked in the driveway with yellow logos on the sides that all said the same thing: Builders of Merit. I started forward again and was almost to the front door when men came out of the house carrying a rolled, old soggy carpet that reeked of cigarette smoke and dripped nasty brown juice as it went. The men who hoisted the garbage were laughing and talking to each other. I stopped at the end of the ramp and waited until they were past. None of them asked me what I was doing or seemed to care. I went inside.
From the floorboards near the kitchen sink, a round hose stuck up like an ancient gray plastic vine from a dystopian movie that had grown there overnight, and it shot through the open kitchen window into the backyard. Outside a loud motor chugged. Maybe the hose carried water from under the house? That seemed like a decent bet because sloshing and gurgling accompanied the other sounds of banging coming from the bathroom. I stepped on the ugly planks of the bare, damp flooring in the living room and spiraled. This was going to be expensive. I’d tried so hard to keep the house livable for Dad.
Casey’s friend from last night, who I’d met at the club, came over to me with his hand out. He was tall, almost as big as Casey bear, and the sight of him made me sad. “Merit,” he said.
“I remember,” I murmured and shook his hand. I glanced around hopefully for Casey because I wanted to talk to him, and maybe apologize for leaving him yet another of my messes. “Thank you. I’m grateful. I owe you.”
“Nope, you owe Casey,” he said with a wink. He smelled good—woodsy cologne and coffee—which had my gut twisting even more with thoughts of Casey. “You feel like doing me a favor, though, maybe hear him out? He means well.”
Sadness swamped me. Hear Casey out? He probably wouldn’t want to talk to me. “This wasn’t my fault,” I mumbled.
Merit knocked back the cap on his head with his thumb and grinned. “I know. Sometimes people do the wrong thing when they’re scared. Doesn’t mean that person doesn’t want to be with you.”
Did he mean I’d done stuff I shouldn’t have, or was he talking about Casey? People were so confusing. This was why I didn’t talk much. “What should I do?”
He eyed me up and crossed his burly arms. The flannel he wore strained at the shoulders. “Go home? Get some rest? Looks like you need it.”
“Are you sure? It’s still fucked in here.”
